


in the crowd

by preromantics



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-31
Updated: 2010-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:12:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(SWC Day Five) Wherein Gaga is a matchmaker and Evan fixates and isn't a stalker, really. <i>So, Evan was a little pre-occupied after making out with Johnny -- Johnny Weir! his brain supplied, exclamation and all, -- in his car.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	in the crowd

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to unlurkster's [](http:)Year of Gaga which should be read first.

So, Evan was a little pre-occupied after making out with Johnny -- Johnny Weir! his brain supplied, exclamation and all, -- in his car.

He woke up in the morning mostly sideways on his own bed, half in his clothes from the night before and half out of them, not really remembering how he'd made it from the venue to his house, except for the flash of kissing Johnny in his car that kept playing with almost supernatural clarity in a loop under his eyelids.

That was normal though -- it was completely normal to fixtate on a memory or a kiss or something. Evan fixated on triple toe loops when he was thirteen and on kissing that one girl, Margret, when he was fourteen, and getting that handjob from that pretty male French skater who was disqualified when he was seventeen. Fixating was normal.

Except, as Evan rolled out of bed, skin sticky with sweat that he knew didn't all belong to him, (and on reflection, mosh pits were kind of gross,) he started to think about how many times in his life he'd woken up fixating on something to do with Johnny. Mornings after a competition, first, when he was younger, remembering with clear clarity how Johnny had owned the ice, how his face had looked so triumphant with his hair matted down and wet around it. Later in his life, waking up thinking of how Johnny's face had looked when Evan won, a little angry, a little -- dejected, probably -- and Evan had laid in bed back then trying to be proud of himself but feeling a little bad, too.

(That's why he resented Johnny for so long, something he'd realized after the Olympics; every time he won he tried to feel proud of his hard work and feel like he deserved it, but Johnny was always right by him when he won, always looking at Evan in a way that Evan remembered better then his win. Now, though, Evan has a gold medal in his living room and some really good press deals and Johnny has a TV show and some weird music that Evan completely, totally doesn't have saved on his iPod under a different name. So it evens out.)

Evan showered to get his skin clean, letting the warm water loosen his limbs and wash away a brief moment of panic where he wondered if Johnny would go and tell everyone that Evan had admitted his sexuality to him after a Lady Gaga concert, oh god. Except he remembered Johnny's face when he'd dropped him off, one eyebrow raised, lips flushed red and turned down at the side wryly, eyes bright, and Evan didn't think Johnny would tell anyone. Not for now.

He spent a little time online while he made a smoothie in the kitchen. (This time he remembered to put the top of the smoothie machine on all the way, because last week had taught him that being bombarded by flying half-mashed fruit is a truely horrific experience, and that strawberry mush doesn't come out of hair all that well. On the bright side, his fruit-treated hair had stayed soft for days after.)

The weird figure skating website that Evan tried to stay off of -- some of the people were just a little bit crazy, and Evan had no problem with that as long as they weren't accosting him in public places, but still -- listed Johnny as leaving for some talk show appearances the next day out of LAX and Evan hummed to himself, a little, looking around his empty apartment to make sure no one could see, and then he called his manager.

  
-

  
He managed to book some radio shows in the same areas Johnny was going and one talk show in the same studio he had a show in, and it was all networking -- press with them some place in the same day was better then press with them separate. This would give the interviewers valid excuses to ask them about each other, and Evan could talk about how awesome Johnny actually was, except find a better way to say it without implying he maybe wanted to get into Johnny's pants, because that would be awkward and Evan wanted to maybe not admit that, ever.

He couldn't find a reason to go to LAX the day Johnny left, though, and maybe he was completely fixated right now, but it wasn't like he was training to skate or to dance and it was better then trying to learn tricks with the complicated remote to his TV every day while he wasted away, jogging around the neighborhood more times than he could count.

(The people at Delta, even, told him repeatedly that they couldn't tell him if a passenger was flying with them or what flight they were on, which was annoying, because they could just google his name and see he did really know Johnny, okay, and he was a little bit famous, didn't airlines go out of their way to do stuff for mildly-famous people? He'd tried the whole flashing-his-medal to get some action at a party once, and it hadn't worked so well, and he'd been a little drunk, but he thought maybe that might work for airlines. It didn't, though.)

So Evan found himself driving to LAX with no real purpose the day Johnny left and hanging around the outside of the Delta terminal, chain-drinking these really awesome mango smoothies from Smoothie Hut that he'd have to go out on the ice for _days_ just to burn off his hips, but it was worth it when he spotted Johnny's head -- who else would wear a hat with a single, long black feather bobbing off of the top? -- through a line at security.

He cut across the lines with only minimal glaring, and one really scary look from a security guard, until he got to Johnny.

"Hi," he said, tucking his hands into his pockets.

Johnny's face went through a mixture of emotions that looked a little hilarious, but Evan didn't laugh. "Evan," Johnny said, after opening his mouth and presumably not being able to find a word. Evan was a little proud of himself. Johnny didn't even use his last name!

"Evan," Johnny said again, this time clearer, "what the hell."

Evan shrugged a shoulder up and smiled as bright as he could.

"Are you flying out somewhere?" Johnny asked. He looked around Evan, pointedly.

Maybe Evan hadn't thought his plan through that well. "Well," he said, "no. Not today."

Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Okay," he said, drawing it out, "so you thought you'd -- scope out the terminal? I know you've been to LAX before."

Evan shook his head. "No, I just -- heard you were leaving today. Wanted to say goodbye." Okay, maybe he sounded a little crazy to even himself.

Johnny moved forward in the line. He turned away from Evan and shook his head several times. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, or that you are on drugs," Johnny said.

Evan laughed, maybe he was. Maybe Johnny had drugs in his mouth when Evan kissed him and they hadn't worn off yet, but Johnny had turned to him again and looked vaguely, if not a little mockingly concerned, and Evan felt a little warm. "Not drugs," Evan clarified, although it was mostly to himself.

"I have to go," Johnny said, pressing forward in the line.

"Okay," Evan said, rather more brightly than the situation called for. "I'll see you in Albuquerque and Chicago and Miami," he added.

Johnny looked a little like he didn't know what to say, half bent over to pull off his shoes, and that was new, the whole speechless thing. Evan congratulated himself, even as a security guard shooed him away from the line. He got another smoothie and his hips felt a little heavier already, but his feet felt light when he walked back to his car.

  
-

  
Evan's plane ride the next day to Albuquerque was a little horrific, like the blender incident. There was a kid in front of him who wouldn't stop crying and a man to his right with bad breath that seemed perpetual, even though he kept popping mints every fifteen minutes.

Thankfully, it was short, and Evan watched a few Lady Gaga videos on his laptop while thinking about how he'd felt like he was floating in the pit and how Johnny's face had been practically glowing after, flushed with heat and not cold in a way Evan wasn't used to seeing.

He went to his radio interview in Albuquerque and the announcer said, "So we had your -- rival, as the press would have it -- Johnny Weir in the studio just an hour ago, talking about the second season of his show. Have you seen it?"

"No," Evan answered, honestly, and for his flight to Chicago he downloaded the first half of the first season and watched it on the plane, laptop turned facing the window so he got a crick in his neck from watching, just a little self-conscious.

  
-

  
Much of the next two weeks went the same way. Evan missed Johnny by hours or minutes every time he was in the same place, and he'd listen to repeats of Johnny's radio interviews on his rental car radios, _"Lysacek? Yeah, he's been doing a lot of press lately, too, although God knows for what. Maybe he'll write an Olympic tell-all book, that's what gold medalist do after they retire, right?"_

(Which Evan didn't think was fair. He wasn't planning on writing a book for a couple of years at least, and he was doing press for a good reason! For future endeavors and also to make Johnny -- something, like him? Evan wasn't entirely sure, but.)

He caught Johnny in a Miami TV station greenroom, though. Johnny had gigantic sunglasses perched on top of his head and was wearing some ridiculous long tank top with the Eiffel Tower on it. Evan stopped halfway into the room and stared for a second before he grinned.

"You," Johnny said. He paused halfway through flipping a magazine page.

"Me," Evan agreed, and the day suddenly got a little brighter. (Despite it being Miami, where figures of speech like that didn't work, Evan reminded himself, but he'd never paid much attention in English anyway, so.)

"You are stalking me," Johnny said, setting his magazine aside. Evan sat down on the couch directly across from him and folded his hands in his lap.

"We just happen to be doing press in the same places," Evan said. He thought he managed to hike the tone of his voice into convincing, but with the way Johnny was looking at him, he didn't think it worked too well.

"Is this a -- a gay crisis thing?" Johnny asked, leaning forward. He had gum in his mouth, and he snapped it.

Evan sighed. "No," he said, "I already said that, in the car that time." (In the car that time we kissed and it was awesome and Lady Gaga was playing in the background, he didn't add.)

Johnny looked around the room before he settled his eyes back on Evan's face. "Okay," he said. "Then --" he gestured vaguely with his free hand, the one not holding the dog-eared page of his magazine in place.

Evan didn't actually know what it was -- he didn't think it was a crisis. It was still a sort of fixation on Johnny, because Evan sort of liked him and sort of wanted to make out with him and then, he didn't know, go on vacations to Russia with him (because Johnny would like that) and hold hands, and maybe pairs skate for fun and exercise, because that was how inner-figure-skating relationships all ended in Evan's head.

"I --" Evan said, but he was cut off by an aide who popped her head in the door and told Johnny to come with her.

"Ten minutes for you," she said to Evan, and he sank down into the couch when she walked out, and he waited a respectable amount of time before standing and going over to check out the magazine Johnny was reading. Gaga was on the cover.

  
-

  
After Miami, Evan ran out of bookings.

"Stop working yourself so hard," his mom said, and in the background of the phone call Evan heard something sizzle on the stove, "go enjoy some free time and then come home and visit."

"Sure, Mom," he said, but he'd never been very good at knowing how to enjoy free time. Not for a couple of years, at least.

He booked some tickets to New York City and a hotel room and then, on a whim, saw there was going to be a Lady Gaga concert while he was there. The tickets were sold out, but he called his new P&amp;R people and it didn't even take an hour for them to secure pit tickets and a pre-show backstage pass for him.

He went to bed and didn't think about Johnny maybe being there, too, about seeing him in the pit or backstage and about being in a car with him again, maybe in a hotel room.

  
-

  
Evan entered his flight feeling vaguely like he hadn't slept well at all, even though he knew he had. When he sat down, (first class, he luxuriated,) he shut his eyes, and it wasn't until he heard a little recognizable, "Oh, _god_," that he opened them again to find Johnny looking down at him from the isle.

"You would be in first class," Johnny said. He had more carry-on luggage than Evan thought was legal and he was holding up a line of people behind him.

"You aren't?" Evan asked, and it came out a little like something he would've said to Johnny before on accident, because he was tired from thinking about Johnny all night in his sleep, and he opened his mouth to correct himself, but Johnny cut him off with a laugh.

"Well there's the Lysacek I know and --" Johnny said, and then didn't finish his sentence. Someone behind him groaned, pushing forward, and Johnny was jostled enough that Evan leaned over reflexively to catch him from falling with his arm across Johnny's waist.

"Thanks," Johnny said, and he looked startled. Evan nodded. "I'll just be -- in economy. Over there," Johnny said.

He moved forward and disappeared past the curtain separating the two parts of the plane, a line of harried people following him. Evan leaned back into his seat, wide awake now, looking down at his arm.

(He managed to only go down the isle of the economy section under the guise of using the bathroom one, and Johnny was in his seat with a face mask over his eyes and big headphone over his ears, and Evan paused for a second to look at him, and continued his walk to the bathroom with a grin on his face that felt like it was centered somewhere in the middle of his chest.)

  
-

  
He didn't see Johnny when they got off the plane, but he did see a Smoothie Hut, which meant he had to stop and get one of those mango smoothies that now irrevocably reminded him of Johnny just like cars and airports and Gaga and skating rinks did.

Evan started to wonder if his fixation on Johnny was less of a fixation and more of a staple of his day to life, and he found he didn't mind if that was the case.

The Gaga show wasn't until his second day in the city, so he got his hotel room and went walking, pretending that he was burning calories but instead looking in the windows of every vaguely-bohemian looking cafe and designer store for Johnny.

Sometimes Evan never got to really enjoy the cities he went to, all the countries he'd been in and out off and only seen the inside of rinks in. It was nice to let the city settle in his bones as he walked, nice to cross streets with all the other people in a hurry, determined to get somewhere, while he himself didn't actually have anywhere to go for the first time in a long while.

He got a slice of pizza and ate it while walking back to his hotel, and fell asleep with _The Fame_ playing on his laptop.

  
-

  
Evan tried on a variety of outfits, even though most of them all looked the same. Every time he looked in the mirror his reflection looked back at him in an increasingly exasperating fashion.

He got to the venue early under the instruction of his backstage pass and let a bodyguard about double his size lead him backstage to a wide space where people and dancers in varying states of dress were lounging, Gaga, when he looked up, was sitting in the corner in front of a wide vanity with old-fashioned lights.

She caught his eye in the mirror when he walked in, looking around and trying to figure out where to sit, feeling overdressed in his short sleeve shirt and pants.

"Evan," she said, turning with a welcoming smile, "Evan --"

"Lysacek," he provided. Someone to his right groaned, and when he looked over, it was Johnny, laying sideways on a couch with a female dancer doing his hair and a male one using his stomach as a pillow.

"Johnny," Evan said, and probably sounded more excited than he meant to. Johnny threw an arm over his eyes.

Gaga had walked over, though, her arms reached out for a hug. He leaned in rather awkwardly, his chin bumping her face as she gave him a quick hug. "Johnny seems grumpy today," she said, rather decisively, and Evan looked over at him laying on the couch as he followed Gaga towards her vanity for lack of anywhere else to go.

"Only when I'm around," Evan told her, sitting down in a pile of cushions and feeling extra gangly. He looked around the room as she did her make-up, the muted but recognizable sounds of an excited crowd somewhere in the distance filtering over all the various conversations going on around him.

He was backstage at MSG, sitting next to Lady Gaga, and looking at Johnny Weir stretched out on a couch in someone's lap with someone on his stomach. His life, Evan decided, had gotten really weird over the past few months, and not just because of the gold medal in his living room. (Well, actually it was in his hotel room, since he felt weird leaving it at home, but it was in his suitcase so no one had to know.)

"When I was a girl, I always wanted to figure skate," Gaga said. She turned towards him and he looked away from Johnny a little guiltily. She smiled at him, soft.

"It's really -- something," Evan said.

"I would go in Central Park," Gaga said, "and hold my sisters hand while we went in circles and watched the good people in the center doing spins."

Evan grinned at her. It wasn't as bad as he had thought to have her attention directly on him, like it had been on Johnny last time. He liked her, a lot.

"Spins are easy," he said, "once you are learn how easy they really are."

Her smiled widened, kind, "I was always afraid of falling," she said, and she nodded. "Now, though, I don't think I'd be afraid. I'll come see you and you can teach me, gold medalist."

Evan nodded enthusiastically. "Definitely," he said. How weird and cool would that be, teaching Lady Gaga to skate? He'd have to tell Johnny all about it, and he'd be jealous -- or, better yet, Evan thought as he looked back over at Johnny on the couch, Johnny could be there too. They could all be skating.

"Everything is easy once you learn how easy it is, in a way," Gaga added. When Evan looked up at her, she had an unusual smile on her face, like she meant something more than what he'd heard.

"Yeah," Evan agreed, although he still distinctly felt like he was missing something. A few minutes later, he filed out with all the backstage guests back out onto the floor from the side of the stage, Johnny three people ahead of him.

  
-

  
Seeing Gaga in concerted was much like Evan remembered the first time. The press of the crowd around him, keeping him standing as he inched towards where Johnny had slipped right up against the barricade every song.

She was electric on stage, and Evan understood perfectly why Johnny liked to skate to her music -- when she sang, it made his limbs feel loose and even though he was focused on Johnny's back through half of her set, his mind was pretty clear. He didn't care as much this time if people recognized him there.

In the middle of her set, Gaga changed outfits, and when she came back out she had a microphone in her hand, and her dancers were posed in the background, completely still.

"Monsters," she said, and had to wait over a minute for the roar of the crowd to die down. Evan let the disorientation of the crowd enable him to push forward until he was right up behind Johnny, almost pressed up against him.

"I have something to say," Gaga continued. "It's about intentions -- it's about realizing that sometimes people can change, and sometimes even when you don't believe it, they mean what they are offering."

The crowd screamed, deafening around Evan's ears. He was pressed forward into Johnny's back, but Johnny didn't turn around.

"Sometimes," Gaga said, "you think someone hates you, and then you look and realize they just want to fuck you." The crowd screamed some more, but Evan looked up at Gaga, frowning during her pause.

"Sometimes," Gaga continued, and she looked down and was practically looking right at Evan, at Johnny in front of him, "they just want to hold your hand. But you have to realize that they mean it. That They'd they'd follow you across the country for it."

Evan stared up at her, and could almost feel when Johnny turned minutely around as the intro for Gaga's next song came pouring through the speakers, all loud bass and electronic beat.

Johnny was jostled enough by the crowd that his half turn had to be a full one, and suddenly he was pressed chest-to-chest with Evan.

"Hi," Evan said, startled and shouting.

Johnny gaped at him for a moment. "Why," he asked, shouting, too, "do I get the feeling that was some sort of hint?"

Evan looked down at him and grinned, beatific. "It's Gaga," he shouted, because it made sense to say.

Johnny nodded in the limited amount of space between them. "Do you want to fuck me?" Johnny asked, shouting over the crowd, even though Evan thought everyone could hear him with the way the words were looping in his head.

It was his turn to gape.

"Or," Johnny asked, and this time Evan leaned forward to hear him better, "do you want to just hold my hand?"

Evan grinned again, and his mouth felt too big for his face. "Both," he shouted back, after a pause of hesitation.

Johnny's mouth opened like he was going to say something, but instead he reached his arms up and wrapped both of them around Evan's neck. He hauled him down in a way that made Evan lose balance, but he caught himself just in time for Johnny's lips to press against his, slick and hot.

Gaga laughed, full and loud during her song in the background, and Evan got the distinct feeling that she had seen them, but he didn't care -- not with Johnny licking devilishly into his mouth like he was, all pressed up against him as the bass of the music vibrated through Evan's bones.

  
-

"You're so stupid," Johnny said, afterward, half dragging Evan down the street beyond the piles of people pouring out of the Garden, "you didn't have to follow me across the country."

"Why?" Evan asked, letting himself be dragged and trying not to trip. "You didn't get the hint in the car, that first time."

Johnny rolled his eyes. "I got it now," he said. "It's weird, but I guess --"

Evan leaned down and cut him off with a kiss, feeling less awkward in his skin than he ever had leaning down to kiss someone before. "It's weird," he agreed. "Good, though."

"Good," Johnny agreed, and the word came out half on a sigh.

Evan watched the reflection of Gaga's MSG ticker board flash in a puddle in the road and let Johnny drag him faster back to the hotel. He grinned and his feet felt light.


End file.
